


Through Chaos as it Swirls

by Bus_Kids_Burgade (Inthemorninglight)



Series: Never Have to Carry More than You Can Hold [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: 3x04 alternate scene, Gen, PTSD Jemma, Panic Attack, mama may
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-07
Updated: 2016-08-07
Packaged: 2018-07-29 20:58:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7699123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inthemorninglight/pseuds/Bus_Kids_Burgade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"When she says 'don't', don't."<br/>-<br/>The first time May and Simmons come face-to-face after Jemma's rescue. May helps her through a somewhat public panic attack.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Through Chaos as it Swirls

**Author's Note:**

> May and Simmons come so close to seeing each other in 3x04 and I will forever be bitter that May never witnessed/helped Jemma deal with her PTSD directly after her return. So now she gets to.

She can’t - she can’t - 

She clutches the mess of papers to her chest, folding and crumpling them in her haste to get away and panicking even as she does so that she’s hurting her research. The lab is bright and Fitz and Bobbi are so  _ loud  _ right beside her, close and towering as they chase on her heals, and she can’t - 

Fitz wants to know why she’s studying the rocks, and Bobbi is telling him to let it go, just drop it, and their voices are fear and intensity making her heart race. Their hands are reaching for her. To stop her, to steady her, she doesn’t know, it doesn’t matter. She just needs to get away, but she is still off-balance, and as she bursts through the lab door, the world pitches violently beneath her. She lands hard on the cement floor and the papers go flying. 

Her name rings off the high, brick walls, a whirlwind of noise, and they fall upon her, checking for injury, trying to pull her up, demanding to know if she’s alright. 

“Don’t,” she says but there’s barely breath behind it to make it heard. 

They’re hands are all over her, trying to support her, to check her pulse, to help her  up. They’re touching her papers, they’re bickering about what she needs over her head. 

“Don’t, don’t,” she tries to push the word out as far as she can, but to her rising panic, it won’t break the surface of their voices. She writhes in their solicitous grip and it only makes them hold tighter. “Don’t!”

She tries to stand and hits the ground again and they’re yelling for  her to stay still, to calm down, to breathe, and their faces swim before her, and it’s like drowning all over - 

“Stop.”

It’s not a shout, but May’s command has no trouble cutting through the chaos. All three of them freeze at once, turning toward her. Her arms are crossed like ironclad bolts and her eyes cut between Fitz and Bobbi. 

“Back up.” 

They scramble away from Jemma at once, and she sags where she kneels in her heap of creased papers. 

“When she says ‘don’t’’, don’t.” May says it calmly, but her words are made of steel. 

“We were just -” 

“I was trying to -”

“When she says don’t” May says over them. “Don’t.”

Fitz and Bobbi exchange sheepish expressions. 

Simmons is still on the floor, hugging herself and rocking slightly, eyes on her knees. 

“Go,” May orders, both Bobbi and Fitz and Andrew, who’s looking on silently behind her. 

No one argues. Bobbi and Fitz both look reluctant to leave Jemma, but they stand and slink down the hallway anyway, casting a few anxious backward glances as they go. 

When it’s just the two of them, May drops her gaze and lets her breath out in a slow, steady stream. She’s not sure if Simmons is aware of her presence or not, so she lowers herself slowly to the ground where she stands, several feet away. 

She watches from the corner of her eye for several minutes as the girl slowly pulls herself back together, steadies her breathing, runs her palms over her knees compulsively several times, gathers her papers methodically into a neat stack.

May stays very still, but she is overwhelmed by a desire to touch Simmons’s shoulder, smooth back her hair, prove that she is indeed here, alive, and not the ghost that’s been haunting May’s thoughts for months. But she bottles up the simultaneous exaltation and heartbreak this first sight of her has elicited. May focuses instead on Simmons’s body language, on determining what might actually help her. 

She’s calming down now, more aware of her surroundings. The white-knuckle grip she still has on the stack of papers tells May to keep her distance, but the fact that she hasn’t fled, that she is fidgeting rather than freezing like a rabbit in the eye of a hawk, suggests that she’s not silently willing May to leave, either. 

“If it happens again,” May says, quiet, “try closing your eyes and breathing through your nose.”

Simmons gives the tiniest jerk of her head which might be acknowledgment. Several more quiet minutes pass between them. May avoids staring outright, but she watches carefully, if covertly. When Simmons begins sneaking fleeting glances toward her, May shifts her gaze more directly toward her. 

“Tell them exactly what you need,” she says. “You don’t have to worry about their feelings right now. Just worry about your own.” 

This time Simmons’s nod is distinct. 

When she still makes no move to stand or leave the hallway, May shifts so she can lean against the wall. Six or seven feet down the hall, Jemma mirrors her movements. They sit beneath the blanket of companionable silence for a long time. May listens to the distant, familiar sounds of the base and to Simmons’s breaths and deliberately keeps her own deep and slow, acting as a metronome. 

Eventually Coulson comes looking for May. His steps falter when he sees them, but Jemma has not tensed up, so May glances in his direction to invite him closer. She stands and Jemma stands, and their eyes meet for the first time in six months. 

“I’m glad your back, Agent May,” Simmons murmurs. 

“You too,” May tells her and there has never been more potent meaning in her words. 

Jemma nods, flickers a half-smile at Coulson, and disappears down the hallway. 

“That feels like progress,” Phil says, raising an eyebrow at her. 

“She has a long way to go,” May tells him as they fall into step, grim not because he’s wrong but because she knows too well what a distance it is to outrun nightmares. 

“She won’t be going alone, though,” Coulson says, half-promise, half-prediction as he casts a look in May’s direction. 

May glances over her shoulder to the corner Simmons has by now rounded. “Alone is the only way,” she says. “In the end. But we can do our best.”  


End file.
